"The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn."

So begins Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. So, too, begins my grand literary plan. I decided to start with Gray because, in a manner of speaking, it was this book which stirred the idea in the first place, or, to be more precise, it was other people talking about this book. Classmates in college, colleagues, and even my wife have been telling me for years that I "have to read Dorian Gray."

It turned up in so many conversations that I pondered reading it just so I could finally say, “yes” when asked again. It was this sort of thinking that brought me to this point in my reading life, so I think it only apropos to start, as Lewis Carroll’s Alice said, at the beginning.

I must admit the start of this book did not give me much hope and, indeed, had I not wanted to give the plan a good start, I probably wouldn't have made it much past the first page. As opening lines go, Wilde's sounds more like the lead to an article in a gardening magazine than the supernatural tale I have been promised.

In brief, it is the story of the young, beautiful Mr. Dorian Gray who manages to retain his youthful good looks at the cost of his eternal soul. It's not a bad premise, but sounds more like something Poe would have written than the playwright of The Importance of Being Earnest.

The first two chapters, which I had a bit of trouble getting through, would have required Edgar to be on a fair bit of Prozac for it to come from his pen. Come to think of it, Wilde's characters probably would have run screaming from the house of Usher or, more likely, just curled up in each other's arms and sobbed extravagantly.

The story opens on the person of Lord Henry Wotton who, based on the little I know about Wilde, strikes me as the sort of dandy persona the author liked to put on himself. Wotton is lounging "languidly" (that word comes up a lot) in the garden and studio of a painter, Basil Hallward. Basil is the artist behind the picture of Dorian Gray. The two of them talk for a while about beauty, art, and Dorian, who eventually shows up at the start of chapter two.

The scene has more than a few homosexual overtones to it, especially when Lord Henry mentions he never sees his wife except for the occasional meal when they both tell each other outrageous lies. Then there is the discussion of Dorian's Adonis-like qualities and how both Basil and Henry become enraptured with the effeminate twenty-year-old, but for different reasons.